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[Mgoblue201]

The evolution of a specific substance earlier in the fossil record, if it is indeed true, is interesting, but there are many examples of creatures evolving similar things independently. It wouldn't be much different, say, than bats and birds evolving wings independently from each other. One simply has to get used to the fact that evolution is capricious. It's not a straight line or a hierarchy, wherein if evolution goes "back", then it's disproven. As speculawyer said, that is completely different from something that is basically impossible, like the rabbit in the Cambrian.

Furthermore, the fossil record is spotty if you want to see the evolution of creatures on a species to species level. Given the rate of fossilization, this isn't too surprising. However, much more common than some outliers such as the prior mentioned amber is the wealth of fossils pointing to evolution. If you don't believe in evolution, for example, then you'd have to explain why whales appear after the first mammals in the fossil record. You'll have to explain why mammalian-like reptiles, replete with shifting ear bones, appear just before true mammals. You'll have to explain why so many human-like species appear so late. Without these, evolution could easily be falsified. And I can also bring up the wealth of evidence within DNA for genetic remnants from evolution. Scientists also make predictions about evolution: for example, Tiktaalik, or the existence of the fused chromosome.

Specific examples of animals preserved in amber would have to be given. How similar are they to animals today? Are they even of the same genus?

 

[BorkBork]

You are exemplifying the problem I was pointing out.

Metaphysics extends a bit beyond wild supernatural concepts like Gods and theology. This is also a problem with most of those who use science without understanding it. Science is a tool with limited application, the things it cannot examine are not lesser because science cannot examine them. Believing that if a topic or experience extends beyond objective science as being inherently false or meaningless is the deepest kind of ignorance.

The problem is that most (see thread for the examples) don't understand science, don't understand its methodology, don't understand how to critically analyze its claims. They accept science as "believers" accept religion and God, by appeals to authority and dogma. And this is why both sides often display the same level of derp derp stupidity. One claims to believe in God the other claims to believe in science. Yet neither has any understanding of theology,science or critical thought.

This is extremely important to note, I think it's a good post. Science has its limits, and it acknowledges those limits very clearly to those who understand it. Untestable and unfalsifiable assumptions are outside the realm of science. That does not mean that those assumptions are definitely false, just that we need different tools to examine those claims.

Similarly, there are questions science cannot and should not answer. To point out these questions to suggest that science is somehow flawed or invalid is silly. Conversely, to use science in a debate in order to address those questions is equally as silly.

I'm starting to wonder if education about science itself needs to be more of a focus, since it seems like many people use it without realizing what it really is.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Untestable and unfalsifiable assumptions are outside the realm of science. That does not mean that those assumptions are definitely false, just that we need different tools to examine those claims.

They're not definitely false, they're just inane and useless, doomed to forever be the realm of intellectual curiosity.

Spoiler

Karl Popper GAF represent

 

[BronzeWolf]

Is this correct?

What would disprove evolution? What proves it?

Evidence that proves evolution
Scientists find a fossil something that kind of looks like a hippo.
Scientists find that the vestigal legs of whales look look like those of the hippo-like fossil AND the modern hippo
Scientists think that maybe they are related.
Scientists then find an intermediate species that shares both animal's characteristics. This goes hand in hand with what evolution predicts. +10 points

Lack of evidence that proves evolution
If evolution is wrong, maybe we could find modern rabbits in the Precambrian.
Scientists wait for a rabbit fossil to appear in the Precambrian..
They wait...
They wait a little bit more...
Precambrian.Rabbit STILL has not been found
The longer they wait and the more fossils that get dig up and ARE NOT Precambrian.rabbits, the less likely we are to find one and the less likely that it EVEN EXISTED.
This goes AGAIN'ST the possibility that evolution is wrong. +5 points

Tentative case
Scientists find a Precambrian.rabbit, possibilities
a) A hoax
b) A chemically modified modern rabbit
c) A real Precambrian.rabbit.
Physics analyzes the remains measuring how fast the dirt around it radioactivity occurs. It checks
Biologists check the chemical composition for known chemistry compounds that are consistent with the period. It checks
Other bio-anthropologists look at the remains to see if it IS a Precambrian.rabbit. It checks.
Geophysics Scientists look at the surrounding earth characteristics to see it is consistent with accepted Precambrian.gruond characteristics. It checks
The Precambrian.Rabbit is more likely not a hoax. -10000 points for evolution, back to square one

 

[Dude Abides]

You guys are arguing evolution with a junior whose username is "JCRedeems." Best of luck!

 

[Gaborn]

Is this correct?

What would disprove evolution? What proves it?

Evidence that proves evolution
Scientists find a fossil something that kind of looks like a hippo.
Scientists find that the vestigal legs of whales look look like those of the hippo-like fossil AND the modern hippo
Scientists think that maybe they are related.
Scientists then find an intermediate species that shares both animal's characteristics. This goes hand in hand with what evolution predicts. +10 points

Lack of evidence that proves evolution
If evolution is wrong, maybe we could find modern rabbits in the Precambrian.
Scientists wait for a rabbit fossil to appear in the Precambrian..
They wait...
They wait a little bit more...
Precambrian.Rabbit STILL has not been found
The longer they wait and the more fossils that get dig up and ARE NOT Precambrian.rabbits, the less likely we are to find one and the less likely that it EVEN EXISTED.
This goes AGAIN'ST the possibility that evolution is wrong. +5 points

Tentative case
Scientists find a Precambrian.rabbit, possibilities
a) A hoax
b) A chemically modified modern rabbit
c) A real Precambrian.rabbit.
Physics analyzes the remains measuring how fast the dirt around it radioactivity occurs. It checks
Biologists check the chemical composition for known chemistry compounds that are consistent with the period. It checks
Other bio-anthropologists look at the remains to see if it IS a Precambrian.rabbit. It checks.
Geophysics Scientists look at the surrounding earth characteristics to see it is consistent with accepted Precambrian.gruond characteristics. It checks
The Precambrian.Rabbit is more likely not a hoax. -10000 points for evolution, back to square one

Proves/disproves is too strong a dynamic. A better way of saying that would be Evidence that Supports/Contradicts Evolution (as we understand the term today). No one would argue that we know every single thing there is to know about evolutionary biology, but we have enough of a foundation of knowledge to suggest that an outlier fossil that defies the current evolutionary model would not "disprove" it because it doesn't erase the rest of the fossil record. What it would do is cause a rethink as to the complexity of the model for how evolution works.

 

[blame space]

this is the worst thread title i have ever seen

 

[HeadlessRoland]

double post!

 

[HeadlessRoland]

You don't even understand what I'm trying to say, and you've demonstrated that by continuing to get almost all of it completely wrong.

Because its fucking nonsense.

If two people each propose a god where one is subject to the effects of gravity and the other is not, I can very rationally say that the latter is less probable given what we know about science. s probable in our current understanding than if he was subject to the process.

Im going to explain this very slowly. The category of God (omniscient,omnipotent) by default, intrinsic to the term itself, fundamental to the distinction of what God is, is not subject to the rules of the physical universe we know.

Pontificating on random specifics in some inane attempt to create a "probability" is moronic. God by default is beyond them all. So what the fuck is listed things like "Most people fart, so therefore a God that farts is more likely than one that does not!" mean? Absolutely nothing, its fucking nonsense, its not logical or rational its just stupid.

You didn't refute jack. You're saying that you "can't comment on the probability", and I'm saying you can, because by showing that something is not necessary you can set the limit of probability at <1.

Actually I did, if you are unable to understand how whether God being necessary (whatever the fuck that means, understanding specific mechanisms of the Universe in no way discounts "God" being intrinsic to their existence) has nothing to do with probability.

 

[BorkBork]

You guys are arguing evolution with a junior whose username is "JCRedeems." Best of luck!

It seems like he came into the thread with the intention to learn. Hopefully that's the case.

 

[KHarvey16]

Im going to explain this very slowly. The category of God (omniscient,omnipotent) by default, intrinsic to the term itself, fundamental to the distinction of what God is not subject to the rules of the physical universe we know.

And we can make relative judgments on the probability for the existence of a being that is omniscient and omnipresent. Those two words cover more ground the more we learn about the universe. The more we learn and see without coming across anything that represents a process or mechanism that someone might associate with a god, the less likely it becomes that god exists and possesses those abilities.

If god is not subject to the rules of the universe than the probability god exists goes down with every discovery we make about the rules of the universe. How is this a difficult concept whatsoever?

Pontificating on random specifics in some inane attempt to create a "probability" is moronic. God by default is beyond them all. So what the fuck is listed things like "Most people fart, so therefore a God that farts is more likely than one that does not!" mean? Absolutely nothing, its fucking nonsense, its not logical or rational its just stupid.

You are very dedicated to not understanding this at all, I'll give you that. It seems very important to you.

 

[HeadlessRoland]

And we can make relative judgments on the probability for the existence of a being that is omniscient and omnipresent.

No, you cant. I am not sure how many times in how many ways I can explain it. How can science with its inherent restrictions ever refute or substantiate the existence of a God? It cannot, this is not an opinion, this is easily discernible fact. Science as a tool is utterly incapable of EVER being able to refute or substantiate a metaphysical concept like God.

I cannot explain it in an easier to understand way.

You are very dedicated to not understanding this at all, I'll give you that. It seems very important to you.

I just find your argument mind bogglingly silly. I mean I have directly refuted it in half a dozen ways, yet you keep repeating it.

Here try this, define what scientific evidence proving the existence of God would look like.

And then provide an example of what scientific evidence refuting God would look like.

Mind the distinction between theological claims and actions, to just the concept of God itself.

 

[Gaborn]

Im going to explain this very slowly. The category of God (omniscient,omnipotent) by default, intrinsic to the term itself, fundamental to the distinction of what God is, is not subject to the rules of the physical universe we know.

Which is exactly why "God" has no place in a science classroom or in any field of science. A theoretical all powerful God is incapable of being proved or disproved because, for example, She could create a universe that is many billions of years old 6,000 years ago. Or She could have created it yesterday but given ALL of us all the memories, knowledge, and material items commensurate with our having lived on earth the length of time we remember. There is no way to disprove an all powerful being did these things because they would be powerful enough to do it perfectly untraceably. God is not a scientific issue, it's supernatural.

Pontificating on random specifics in some inane attempt to create a "probability" is moronic. God by default is beyond them all. So what the fuck is listed things like "Most people fart, so therefore a God that farts is more likely than one that does not!" mean? Absolutely nothing, its fucking nonsense, its not logical or rational its just stupid.

Definitely.

Actually I did, if you are unable to understand how whether God being necessary (whatever the fuck that means, understanding specific mechanisms of the Universe in no way discounts "God" being intrinsic to their existence) has nothing to do with probability.

Because God is nothing more than putty. Creationists use Her to fill in the gaps in our understanding and then take Her away from that when we find a secular explanation. God's existence or non-existence is irrelevant in science because you can't prove it, you can only provide explanations based on natural law using the scientific method.

 

[KHarvey16]

No, you cant. I am not sure how many times in how many ways I can explain it. How can science with its inherent restrictions ever refute or substantiate the existence of a God? It cannot, this is not an opinion, this is easily discernible fact. Science as a tool is utterly incapable of EVER being able to refute or substantiate a metaphysical concept like God.

I cannot explain it in an easier to understand way.

Probability doesn't refute or substantiate things. What are you talking about?

I just find your argument mind bogglingly silly. I mean I have directly refuted it in half a dozen ways, yet you keep repeating it.

Here try this, define what scientific evidence proving the existence of God would look like.

And then provide an example of what scientific evidence refuting God would look like.

Mind the distinction between theological claims and actions, to just the concept of God itself.

You see? Where is this coming from, "proving" and "refuting"? These have little to do with what I've been saying to you. The argument you imagine me presenting seems very different from what I'm typing.

A royal flush is improbable. Being improbable does not refute its existence, just as the relative likelihood of a full house does not prove(or count as evidence) that you had one last hand.

 

[Raist]

I have a question for evolutionists. In what way can evolution theory can be falsified?

Just to be clear I'm talking about evolution that is all life forms evolved from a common ancestor. I'm not talking about genetic change through time. Even most IDers agree with the latter definition.

I ask this question because no matter what the evidence against it evolutionists would hypothesize something up to uphold the theory.

For examples, there really are huge gaps in the fossil record. Many scientists such as the renown Stephen Gould have openly admitted it. That is why he hypothesized Punctuated Equillibrium - that evolutionary changed happened very fast in short spurts.

There are numerous amber fossils, fully preserved organisms that are said to be millions and millions of years old but they are exactly the same as organisms today. You would expect at least some evolutionary change. But the Evolutionists will say some organisms don't evolve because they don't have to or some variation thereof. To me that's a cheap cop-out and goes to show how Evolutionary theory is not falsifiable.

There is the discovery of well preserved dinosaur cadavers by Mary Schweizter. She said she was completely shocked that it was so well preserved. They are supposedly 60+ million years old but she said she smelled the stench from it and she extracted blood cells from it. Scientists were expectantly incredulous so they said Mary didn't really find red blood cells but something else. But she later proved it was red blood cells. I mean if you believe it is really 60+ million years old then I really question your sanity. Now Mary hypothesized that flesh can be preserved for millions of years. What does this have to do with evolution? You see, instead of changing her evolutionary model she is trying to shoehorn the the dino cadaver inconsistency within the model. It's like no matter what they find you can't falsify it. The refutation of the "vestigial organs" and "Junk DNA" or "Noncoding DNA" as evolutionary leftovers sure didn't falsify it. So what will? Honest question.

Well it take genetic analysis to falsify it? Just other night I was listening to Dr. Paul Nelson on Youtube and he references scientific papers that show that genes pop out of nowhere which contradicts Darwin's Tree of Life.

I was also listening to Dr. Sternberg and Dr. Meyer debate Michael Shermer and Dr. Prothermo about the inadequatcy of a mechanism for whale evolution (awesome debate by the way... highly entertaining).

I'm always skeptical of things. Is that a bad thing? But what do I know. I'm not a scientist and not as smart as you evolutionists.

Most of it has been adressed except what I bolded so I'll adress that.
That doesn't disprove the ToE one bit. I am not sure which papers he's refering to, but I know at least a few examples of this.

What scientists mean when they say that genes "pop out of nowhere" is that they're not derived from an existing gene (ie by duplication and divergence - that's a common mechanism).

So for instance there was a paper a few years ago describing a new gene in Drosophila, and they couldn't find anything else (in the fly's genome or in related organisms') resembling it. The most likely explanation is that it came from a transposon integration. That's exactly what happened for the RAG gene(s) which "appeared" in the jawed vertebrate genome and can't be found in other organisms, allowing the emergence of the adaptive immune system.

 

[HeadlessRoland]

Which is exactly why "God" has no place in a science classroom or in any field of science.

Well of course, I was not attempting to imply otherwise. I just find the equal amounts of stupidity between the two "factions" to be worthy of note. The thread clearly shows how even those that toss around science are equally ignorant of the very things they are using to refute the religious. They think the same way, they adopt ideas in the same way.

It is also a mistake to believe that only things that can be empirically substantiated have worth. Very little of what you "know" is going to be based upon empirical substantiation.

Because God is nothing more than putty.

To be fair thats painting everyone with a very big brush. While in the current era this type of religion is the most noticeable it is hardly the only kind. Its easy to think of everyone who is religious as a moron since the most vocal ones are.

Also, there are vast swathes of modern science that exist beyond the bounds of empirical verification and the scientific method. Even science, or rather the process of "understanding" has to extend beyond those restrictions.

You see? Where is this coming from, "proving" and "refuting"? These have little to do with what I've been saying to you.

Those terms are the terms of fucking science, I am very aware they have little to do with what you are saying. What you are saying is inane.

 

[Mario]

The thread clearly shows how even those that toss around science are equally ignorant of the very things they are using to refute the religious. They think the same way, they adopt ideas in the same way.

Gross greneralisition right there.

It is also a mistake to believe that only things that can be empirically substantiated have worth. Very little of what you "know" is going to be based upon empirical substantiation.

Why is it a mistake? How do you know it is such?

Also, there are vast swathes of modern science that exist beyond the bounds of empirical verification and the scientific method. Even science, or rather the process of "understanding" has to extend beyond those restrictions.

If something is "beyond the bounds of empirical verification and the scientific method" then it isn't science.

Those terms are the terms of fucking science, I am very aware they have little to do with what you are saying. What you are saying is inane.

I think it has been clear that he has been saying that God as described by man via texts such as the Bible is less likely to exist given the evidence provided by science. He is not saying that scientific evidence disproves that a god of some form has any lesser probability of existing.

That is not inane.

 

[HeadlessRoland]

Why is it a mistake? How do you know it is such?

Well its not so much "me" knowing it so much as basic logic. Experience and concepts extend beyond empirical verification. So using objective verification as the standard of "existence" is inherently limiting the scope of your experience and knowledge. It is also stupid.

If something is "beyond the bounds of empirical verification and the scientific method" then it isn't science.

Theoretical physics still tends to be considered science. The scientific method you learn in middle school is not how science in practice works, its a tad bit more complex.

I think it has been clear that he has been saying that God as described by man via texts such as the Bible is less likely to exist given the evidence provided by science. He is not saying that scientific evidence disproves that a god of some form has any lesser probability of existing.

I think its clear that God described by man is not a single thing, even within the context of a given religion to say nothing of ALL of them. Nor does he seem to possess any real knowledge of any of them. And in fact no, he has said nothing like that. What he said is that we can determine the probably of God by somehow factoring in all of ways God is different from the things we observe and understand. And yes in fact its inane as I have explained in detail, repeatedly.

Shit, you are even trying to defend him and don't understand what hes saying...hint hint.

 

[Raist]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I've mostly seen people debunking creationist ideas here, not the concept of god. Not sure it's the right place to discuss theology anyways.

 

[Zaphod]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I've mostly seen people debunking creationist ideas here, not the concept of god. Not sure it's the right place to discuss theology anyways.

I too wish there was a separate science and God topic.

I have a question for evolutionists. In what way can evolution theory can be falsified?

If we told you then the secret would be out and science would be ruined.

Spoiler

Just to be clear I'm talking about evolution that is all life forms evolved from a common ancestor. I'm not talking about genetic change through time. Even most IDers agree with the latter definition.

If you can accept that things change over time, why is it impossible to think that given enough time changes could accumulate that result in a creature different enough to be a new species?

For examples, there really are huge gaps in the fossil record. Many scientists such as the renown Stephen Gould have openly admitted it. That is why he hypothesized Punctuated Equillibrium - that evolutionary changed happened very fast in short spurts.

I've said it before but the gaps thing can be a never ending argument. Once a fossil is found of a creature that is between two know creatures there are now 2 gaps to be filled. Given the billion years or that there has been multi cellular life on this planet and how rare fossilization is there will always be gaps unfortunately. Even then there are still some great snapshots of dinosaurs evolving into birds. First came the downy feathers that baby chickens have. Then came the full feathers and after only after that milestone do we start to see tiny glider like dino/birds.

There are numerous amber fossils, fully preserved organisms that are said to be millions and millions of years old but they are exactly the same as organisms today. You would expect at least some evolutionary change. But the Evolutionists will say some organisms don't evolve because they don't have to or some variation thereof. To me that's a cheap cop-out and goes to show how Evolutionary theory is not falsifiable.

If the basic blueprint is successful there is little reason to change. I don't see how that is a cop out. Knowing that a species has been around for a long time is not evidence against evolution just evidence that some animal forms can survive through the eons. Sometimes there is only one correct answer to an engineering problem and it requires little change. Also while the form may have remained close to the same over millions of years this does not mean that there has been no changes to their DNA over time.

There is the discovery of well preserved dinosaur cadavers by.

Now Mary hypothesized that flesh can be preserved for millions of years. What does this have to do with evolution? You see, instead of changing her evolutionary model she is trying to shoehorn the the dino cadaver inconsistency within the model.

I think you are misrepresenting what she found. She did not find full dead preserved dinosaur or even a dino steak. What she found was material in a T.Rex bone that when tested appears to be preserved tissue. This Q&A from her has some good insight into what she found.

It's like no matter what they find you can't falsify it. The refutation of the "vestigial organs" and "Junk DNA" or "Noncoding DNA" as evolutionary leftovers sure didn't falsify it. So what will? Honest question.

How is non-coding DNA something that contradicts the theory of evolution? I think that it is perfect evidence that we carry around the accumulation of billions of years of reproduction.

Well it take genetic analysis to falsify it? Just other night I was listening to Dr. Paul Nelson on Youtube and he references scientific papers that show that genes pop out of nowhere which contradicts Darwin's Tree of Life.

I was also listening to Dr. Sternberg and Dr. Meyer debate Michael Shermer and Dr. Prothermo about the inadequatcy of a mechanism for whale evolution (awesome debate by the way... highly entertaining).

Again with the videos. What is it with creationists and you tube videos. Anyway could you do me a big favor and just post a link to these papers that have found DNA sequences that just appeared out of no where. The best I could find with google was some fruit fly that may have picked up genes from a virus.

As for whales, I think we know there are plenty of semi-aquatic mammals out there today. We also know that the more time the said creature spends in the water the more likely it will have specialized structures for living in water, like the beaver tail for example. Since you accept that change can occur over time why would it be impossible for a mammal to continue to adapt to an aquatic lifestyle that eventually does not require time on land at all.

I'm always skeptical of things. Is that a bad thing? But what do I know. I'm not a scientist and not as smart as you evolutionists.

I'm sure you are smart. Most of us are laymen here just trying to do our best to explain how we understand evolution. Skepticism is good and I hope you can at least try apply that skepticism equally to creationism as well.

 

[KHarvey16]

Those terms are the terms of fucking science, I am very aware they have little to do with what you are saying. What you are saying is inane.

You aren't even making sense.

I think its clear that God described by man is not a single thing, even within the context of a given religion to say nothing of ALL of them. Nor does he seem to possess any real knowledge of any of them. And in fact no, he has said nothing like that. What he said is that we can determine the probably of God by somehow factoring in all of ways God is different from the things we observe and understand. And yes in fact its inane as I have explained in detail, repeatedly.

Shit, you are even trying to defend him and don't understand what hes saying...hint hint.

You can determine relative probability. One god is less likely than another or a new discovery has made one god less likely than before. You can't get absolute probability.

How are you not grasping this yet? How is this so difficult for you to understand?

 

[Mgoblue201]

The consistency of biological forms should not surprise anyone who has paid attention to the fossil record. Jellyfish, for example, are 500 million years old. Lungfish are at least 400 million years old. Unless there is an extinction, general morphological features tend to be conserved in certain genetically stable populations over time (this does not mean that individual species are left unchanged). What creationists must answer is, if they existed from the beginning, why certain fossils appear to be "inserted" into the record at all and follow a pattern that strongly suggests evolution. There has never been a satisfactory answer because there can be none.

Furthermore, punctuated equilibrium is a very specific evolutionary theory. It is not simply a matter of sudden leaps. Nor does it merely intend to explain changes to evolutionary rates. It explains a specific type of speciation event. And many times that speciation can be so subtle that it takes an expert to tell the difference. So it is not an attempt to explain away the lack of fossils. The emergence of basilosaurus in the fossil record, for example, as a progenitor to modern ceteceans is powerful evidence for evolution, even if there are massive gaps in between.

And so the fundamental problem with JCRedeem's post is that the biologists aren't trying to explain away anything. They have the fossil record on their side. Creationists instead must explain the evidence. And I find that it is usually the creationists who will try desperately to make up reasons why the facts don't fit their suppositions. For example, if there are undeniable physiological or genetic homologies between species, or if there is island biodiversity consistent with the theory of evolution, then creationists usually resort to a defense by explaining that no one can know the capricious mind of a creator. They are also inconsistent in their attacks on evolution. Evolution is attacked for both fossils that are too similar and fossils that are too different from animals currently existing.

And what kind of predictions would creationism make? Would it have said that we wouldn't find an early tetrapod that looks like tiktaalik or acanthostega, and at the exact moment when tetrapods first began appearing on land? If they had made that prediction, they would've been wrong. And if the earth is indeed young, then why aren't we finding preserved DNA everywhere? The irony of a creationist using the "dinosaur blood" argument as proof for creationism is that, according to Mary Schweitzer, it is actually further proof that dinosaurs resemble birds.

While looking over Benaroya Research Institute's website I saw a link in the sidebar for their published papers. This is the first paper on the page:

Complete HOX cluster characterization of the coelacanth provides further evidence for slow evolution of its genome
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A 107: 3622-3627, 2010

Here's a link to the paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/8/3622.full.pdf

mclaren777, it seems like your colleagues have no problem with accepting evolution, paleontology, or geology in their line of work. In fact, they seem to be providing further evidence of evolution in an interesting paper on these Hox genes. What is your take on this?

I can only give this paper a cursory glance right now. Are they defining evolution as change that has become fixed and then conserved in the genome (rather than mere genetic change)? And are they saying that the coleocanth evolved before a whole genomic duplication event that left the organisms with fewer HOX genes than other organisms that have evolved from that lineage?

 

[Mario]

So using objective verification as the standard of "existence" is inherently limiting the scope of your experience and knowledge. It is also stupid.

I disagree with that and specifically with your comment "very little of what you know is going to be based upon empirical substantiation."

Theoretical physics still tends to be considered science.

"Theoretical physics" has a science disclaimer baked into the name.

 

[danwarb]

You are exemplifying the problem I was pointing out.

Metaphysics extends a bit beyond wild supernatural concepts like Gods and theology. This is also a problem with most of those who use science without understanding it. Science is a tool with limited application, the things it cannot examine are not lesser because science cannot examine them. Believing that if a topic or experience extends beyond objective science as being inherently false or meaningless is the deepest kind of ignorance.

The problem is that most (see thread for the examples) don't understand science, don't understand its methodology, don't understand how to critically analyze its claims. They accept science as "believers" accept religion and God, by appeals to authority and dogma. And this is why both sides often display the same level of derp derp stupidity. One claims to believe in God the other claims to believe in science. Yet neither has any understanding of theology, science or critical thought.

Do we know of any topic or experience that will forever extend beyond objective science? It may be physically impossible for science to determine any number of things, but the alternatives subject us even more so to a plethora of cognitive illusions.

This is why evolutionary psychology is so interesting. A lot of ideas in science seem counterintuitive, because we’re much better adapted to thinking about other minds than to pondering reality, which is perhaps why intentional supernatural entities are so popular in the various creation stories.

Is it not safe to say that we’ll arrive at our best guesses through science, following the evidence to ideas we’d never otherwise have considered?

 

[Kinitari]

this is the worst thread title i have ever seen

Yeah, I don't know what that's about.

(I'm pushing for Evolution |OT| of This is why we still got monkeys.)

 

[BronzeWolf]

Theoretical physics still tends to be considered science. The scientific method you learn in middle school is not how science in practice works, its a tad bit more complex.

You sir have no knowledge of what theoretical physicists do.

Theoretical PHYSICS

The scientific method is not complicated

Hypothesis->look for evidence->modify hypothesis to fit evidence->look for more evidence->rinse and repeat.

 

[Mr.Squirrel]

I'm playing Pokemon and I'm trying to evolve my budew but its not working. It says I need to make sure its happy. Any tips GAF?

 

[JCRedeems]

Many ways. A fossil found in the wrong strata could do it or if we couldn't find an explanation for why we are missing a pair of chromosomes compared with apes.

Kenneth Miller picked out data to support his preconceived belief. Though there are many documented instances of these interstitial telomeric sequences in the genomes of humans and chimps, the 2q13 interstitial telomeric sequence is the only one which is able to be associated with an evolutionary breakage point or fusion. Most are not DNA scars in the way they have been portrayed. The following paper shows there are many ITSs in the genomes of chimps, and humans, even mice and cows but the 2q13 ITS is the only can be assocated with an evolutionary fusion.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19420924?dopt=Abstract

Absolutely false.

It is common for evolutionists to conjure up a hypothesis to shoehorn the data into their paradigm. The case about Mary hypothesizing that dinosaur tissue can be well preserved for 68+ million years when there was no precedence is just one example.

"Very fast" meaning thousands of years. The reason it is very fast is because of those gaps in the fossil record...many years in time can seem extremely fast when looked at through fossils.

Also, no scientist should ever hesitate to tell you that the fossil record has gaps. No one is afraid to admit this because it's not a problem for evolution in any way. It is also not true, as far as I know, that punctuated equilibrium was proposed in light of these gaps. That doesn't make too much sense.

Sure it is a problem. Darwin said himself it pose a problem to his theory if their lacked transitional fossils. He admitted in his day there were no transitional fossils. Today there are still no transitional fossils. Gould, who openly admitted it throughout his career hypothesized punctuated equilibirium - a rapid burst of evolution throughout history. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put 2 + 2 together why such a hypothesis would be conjured up. This was to cover up the lack of transitional fossils. In light of that they had to say goodbye to Gradualism Theory and say hello to Punctuated Equilibrium. No wonder there aren't any transitional fossils, right? Just another example that you can't falsify evolution.

Examples?

This Eleutrhorodactylus

is identical to its counterpart. Supposedly 90 million years old.

This Sphaerodactylus

supposedly is 90 million years old but no change at all.

There are thousands of other of different species/families. No evolutionary change at all and of course no examples of intermediates.

Huh? If there are no selection pressures on a species there isn't much reason for them to change. This isn't a cop out, it's how evolution works(and has always been explained to work).

Of course. There was no need for evolution even after 50+ millions of years for many species but humans supposedly diverged from some ape species only like 5-8 million years ago which requires a lot of evolutionary change. Right.

She did not find red blood cells(nor does she mention blood cells in that video). The soft tissue residue inside the bones was preserved only by the rarest of scenarios - fast burial, unbroken bones and deep under ground. You should read her paper.

Apparently they were red blood cells. What else could they be?

"The presence of soft tissues and apparent cells in 68 Ma dinosaur bone (Schweitzer et al. 2005a) was unexpected, particularly because these components retain both morphological and some functional characteristics of their original state. Models have been proposed to
account for the preservation of non-biomineralized tissues, organic matter and kerogens in the fossil record (Butterfield 1990; Stankiewicz et al. 2000; Nguyen & Harvey 2001; Briggs 2003; Butterfield 2003).

However, these taphonomic, molecular or biogeochemical models do not explain the detailed preservation of still-soft, transparent, hollow and flexible tissues and cells over geological time, given that natural processes such as decay and degradation"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1685849/figure/fig3/

Schweitzer couldn't believe she saw red blood cells that she even tried to disprove it but she was wrong:

"Further testing of these cells was done to attempt t disprove the notion that they could possibly be red blood cells. Several analytical techniques were used to characterize the material to include nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Raman resonance and Raman
spectroscopy (RR) and electron spin resonance (ESR). These techniques did identify the presence of the heme group molecule, but the detection limits of these methods were not able to rule-out or rule-in the presence of hemoglobin or myoglobin proteins due to the small amount of specimen available. So, Schweitzer and her team decided to use a more
sensitive detection method, the immune system. They injected some of the T. rex extract into laboratory rats to see if these rats would mount an immune response to the foreign T. rex material. And, the rats did mount a very specific immune response against hemoglobin. This immune response was not only against heme, but hemoglobin, and not just hemoglobin in general, but against a certain type of hemoglobin. The reaction was strongest against pigeon and rabbit hemoglobin. There was also a weak reaction against turkey hemoglobin, but there was no reaction against snake hemoglobin. The specificity of these reactions were further confirmed by the lack of reactivity with plant and
sandstone extracts."

Consider the conclusions that Schweitzer and her team made concerning these findings:

"The production of antibodies specific for hemoglobin in two rats injected with the trabecular extract is striking evidence for the presence of hemoglobin-derived peptides in the bone extract. . . That the antisera did not react with snake hemoglobin shows that the reactivity is specific and not artifact. . . When considered as a whole, the results support the hypothesis that heme prosthetic groups and hemoglobin fragments were preserved in the tissues of the Late Cretaceous dinosaur skeleton."

What looked, appeared, seemed etc. to be like red blood cells were in fact red blood cells. Otherwise it wouldn't have contained hemoglobin or myoglobin proteins. And they showed it did contain hemoglobin or myoglobin proteins through the immunological test. This immune response was not only against heme, but hemoglobin, and not just hemoglobin in
general, but against a certain type of hemoglobin.

Which papers? We can go look at them.

Carl Woese: "Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves. " His paper http://www.pnas.org/content/95/12/6854.full

Dr. Doolittle: "...at its base the universal TOL [The Tree of Life] rests on an unproven assumption about pattern that, given what we know about process, is unlikely to be broadly true." His paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17261804
Here he reveals the tree of life needs to be uprooted http://shiva.msu.montana.edu/courses/mb437_537_2005_fall/docs/uprooting.pdf

A study about orphan genes (genes that come out of nowhere) http://mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/151/8/2499 The sample of orphan genes are continuing to rise as shown in the chart. This contradicts the current evolutionary model- that all life descended from a common ancestor.

A paper by Fischer: "...even if all ORFans correspond to highly divergent members of known families, a number of puzzling questions arise. For example, how have their sequences diverged to such an extent that no similar sequences are detected today? If evolution works through descent with modification, then why is it that no similar sequences are found in other organisms?" http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~dfischer/orfanprot.pdf

Eugene Koonan declares that TOL [Tree of Life] does not exist. http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/21

Paul Nelson also reveals other studies in the video which show that Darwin's Tree of Life has been contradicted by molecular analysis. Does it falsify evolution (the definition I used)? No, they will just hypothesize that life originated many different times, which is even more implausible.

That really isn't like a rabbit in precambrian.


That is just saying that a particular chemical compound existed before flowering plants that are known to create that chemical. Thus, an earlier version of that plant . . . or a different plant/fungus/bacteria probably have made that particular chemical.

Interesting conjecture but it is just another cop-out I anticipated to read.

There are numerous of examples of evolutionists discoveries that were surprises that contradict their paradigm. So what they do is just shoehorn it in. No matter what evidence which contradicts it there is no way to falsify it because they can bend their paradigm at their convenience. The dinosaur cadaver is probably one of the most blatant example I know of. Mary said herself that she can smell the deteroiating stench from it. So how do they reconcile this with their framework? They just hypothesize it can be preserved so well for 60+ million years under certain conditions.... it was just luck. They also found even more presereved cadavers that were even older at 80+ million years. They must be extremely lucky to find well preserved specimens because of special rare conditions or they are not as old as they believe. I will go with the latter.

There are discoveries such as a spider web trapped in an amber deposit that was located in a rock layer supposedly 100 million years older than the time spiders were assumed to have evolved. All they have to do is just say they existed than previously thought.

Another example of supposedly a T. Rex Cousin Evolved 60 Million Years Too Early. It was found in a much lower rock layer than expected.

There are discoveries like this all the time that contradicts the evolutionary model but it can never be falsified.

What scientists mean when they say that genes "pop out of nowhere" is that they're not derived from an existing gene (ie by duplication and divergence - that's a common mechanism).

So for instance there was a paper a few years ago describing a new gene in Drosophila, and they couldn't find anything else (in the fly's genome or in related organisms') resembling it. The most likely explanation is that it came from a transposon integration. That's exactly what happened for the RAG gene(s) which "appeared" in the jawed vertebrate genome and can't be found in other organisms, allowing the emergence of the adaptive immune system.

According to whom? What paper?

There was a discussion on the thread about how gene duplication and you mentioned it but it can't account for "new genetic information" according to a found contradicts that idea. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cplx.20365/abstract
It reads Gene Duplication is "insufficient in explaining the origination of the highly complex information pertinent to the essential functioning of living organisms."

Now notice I didn't post any papers or quotes by a creationist. They are all secular as far I know. And I didn't spam or mine quote. So I hope I don't get banned eeek

So here is my prediction with the whole evolution theory thing: within the next 10 years the wall of evolutionary theory will come crashing down like a demolished building. More people are going to eventually wise up to the evidence against it. What's funny is that a lot of the evidence comes from evolutionists themselves. This could be like overthrowing the geocentric model. Interesting times we live in.

If you can accept that things change over time, why is it impossible to think that given enough time changes could accumulate that result in a creature different enough to be a new species?

To say that all life forms evolved from some proto cell or whatever because we see genetic change in populations today is gross extrapolation. The burden of evidence falls on the evolutionists and from what I have read there is no scientific evidence to make that backs up that extrapolation, it in fact contradicts it.

How is non-coding DNA something that contradicts the theory of evolution? I think that it is perfect evidence that we carry around the accumulation of billions of years of reproduction.

Evolutionists predicted it would be useless leftovers from our evolutionary past. Now we know they have invaluable functions. Their prediction failed. And it has already been pointed out on the thread that random mutations corrupt the genome. They don't build genetic information. The studies by Syke, Sanford and others have shown it does. And natural selection is unable to weed them out. Our destiny is extinction within the next 100,000 years they say.

 

[Mgoblue201]

Much of that post is lifted straight from other creationist websites such as Uncommon Descent and Living Fossils. Vizion, is that you? The most damning thing about this is that you credulously quote things without the expertise to draw the correct conclusions, then make wild sweeping conclusions based upon your own preconceptions. I'll give a response once I have a little more time, but it can take awhile to do the research and fully understand what the research is saying.

 

[Raist]

And here we go again.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Today there are still no transitional fossils.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

 

[HeadlessRoland]

You aren't even making sense.

Strange, I see most people agreeing with me that your posts are nonsense.

I disagree with that and specifically with your comment "very little of what you know is going to be based upon empirical substantiation."

Its not something you can disagree with and be taken seriously. A vast majority of the concepts we accept as scientifically valid or substantiated will not be because we have done the verification ourselves. This goes for any other topic or body of knowledge, history,science etc. Its just not possible to personally verify all of the knowledge we are exposed to. This does not demean that knowledge but it is what it is.

Do we know of any topic or experience that will forever extend beyond objective science?

Yes, we know of entire categories of things that exist beyond objective science. For one anything that cannot be observed or anything that exists beyond causality are things that can never be addressed by science.

You sir have no knowledge of what theoretical physicists do.

Theoretical PHYSICS

The scientific method is not complicated

Hypothesis->look for evidence->modify hypothesis to fit evidence->look for more evidence->rinse and repeat.

Dear lord...

How can science begin with a hypothesis? See this is the difference between a middle school classroom and reality. Science begins with observation, something must be observed before any other steps can take place. You perceive something and then investigate to understand what is causing the things you observe. The first step is inductive in nature. Then once you have a base of knowledge and understanding you can employ deductive reasoning...which means you can create a hypothesis to explain the observations and facts collected by others. But unless this knowledge has been collected you cannot create a hypothesis. Not that this matters because in reality this is rarely the process that occurs. Generally you will conduct research, record the results, then attempt to explain the implications of said results.

Now the criteria for a theory to be valid (lets ignore your attempt to make a distinction between physics and science).

• Consistency does the theory consistently explain observations.
  
• Lack of contradiction, does anything observed or known directly contradict the theory.
  
• Ability to predict future observations, what this means is obvious.
  
• Simplicity, if there are multiple theories that are equal in their explaining and predictive ability the simplest wins.

Now this criteria is much different than non-theoretical science. Why? Because its not possible to observe or apply science to a wide fucking swathe of things we are aware of. Even science must go beyond objective substantiation to explain things we know if. And this is without even getting close to metaphysics.

For some additional reading I recommend Hume's problem of induction for an added dose of perspective.

 

[Count Dookkake]

JC may redeem, but does he read?

 

[Articate]

GAF, you disappoint me.

 

[KHarvey16]

Kenneth Miller picked out data to support his preconceived belief. Though there are many documented instances of these interstitial telomeric sequences in the genomes of humans and chimps, the 2q13 interstitial telomeric sequence is the only one which is able to be associated with an evolutionary breakage point or fusion. Most are not DNA scars in the way they have been portrayed. The following paper shows there are many ITSs in the genomes of chimps, and humans, even mice and cows but the 2q13 ITS is the only can be assocated with an evolutionary fusion.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19420924?dopt=Abstract

Who or what was this a response to? Certainly not me or what I wrote in the section you quoted.

It is common for evolutionists to conjure up a hypothesis to shoehorn the data into their paradigm. The case about Mary hypothesizing that dinosaur tissue can be well preserved for 68+ million years when there was no precedence is just one example.

There's a word for finding things with very little or no precedence. Hmm, I wonder what it could be.

Nothing about this discovery(oh that's it!) falls outside the bounds of our scientific theories. We don't have to make up anything, we just try to learn how it happened and add to our knowledge.

Sure it is a problem. Darwin said himself it pose a problem to his theory if their lacked transitional fossils. He admitted in his day there were no transitional fossils. Today there are still no transitional fossils.

Are you kidding me? There's are hundreds and hundreds of them. The whole idea, honestly, of a transitional fossil is misleading at best anyway. Every fossil is transitional. Can I have a picture of you in a transitional form between childhood and adulthood? I won't believe you actually were a child until you show me a picture of the instant in time you turned into an adult.

PROVE IT

Gould, who openly admitted it throughout his career hypothesized punctuated equilibirium - a rapid burst of evolution throughout history. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put 2 + 2 together why such a hypothesis would be conjured up. This was to cover up the lack of transitional fossils. In light of that they had to say goodbye to Gradualism Theory and say hello to Punctuated Equilibrium. No wonder there aren't any transitional fossils, right? Just another example that you can't falsify evolution.

You are incredibly misinformed. Punctuated Equilibrium didn't replace gradualism, it's a different kind of gradualism.

This Eleutrhorodactylus

is identical to its counterpart. Supposedly 90 million years old.

Identical according to who?

This Sphaerodactylus

supposedly is 90 million years old but no change at all.

Identical according to who?

There are thousands of other of different species/families. No evolutionary change at all and of course no examples of intermediates.

I'm sure :lol

Of course. There was no need for evolution even after 50+ millions of years for many species but humans supposedly diverged from some ape species only like 5-8 million years ago which requires a lot of evolutionary change. Right.

Can you read? That is a serious question. If you can, I suggest you try doing so again.

Apparently they were red blood cells. What else could they be?

In your mind or a scientists? I can see the former being quite limited.

"The presence of soft tissues and apparent cells in 68 Ma dinosaur bone (Schweitzer et al. 2005a) was unexpected, particularly because these components retain both morphological and some functional characteristics of their original state. Models have been proposed to
account for the preservation of non-biomineralized tissues, organic matter and kerogens in the fossil record (Butterfield 1990; Stankiewicz et al. 2000; Nguyen & Harvey 2001; Briggs 2003; Butterfield 2003).

However, these taphonomic, molecular or biogeochemical models do not explain the detailed preservation of still-soft, transparent, hollow and flexible tissues and cells over geological time, given that natural processes such as decay and degradation"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1685849/figure/fig3/

No mention of red blood cells.

Schweitzer couldn't believe she saw red blood cells that she even tried to disprove it but she was wrong:

"Further testing of these cells was done to attempt t disprove the notion that they could possibly be red blood cells. Several analytical techniques were used to characterize the material to include nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Raman resonance and Raman
spectroscopy (RR) and electron spin resonance (ESR). These techniques did identify the presence of the heme group molecule, but the detection limits of these methods were not able to rule-out or rule-in the presence of hemoglobin or myoglobin proteins due to the small amount of specimen available. So, Schweitzer and her team decided to use a more
sensitive detection method, the immune system. They injected some of the T. rex extract into laboratory rats to see if these rats would mount an immune response to the foreign T. rex material. And, the rats did mount a very specific immune response against hemoglobin. This immune response was not only against heme, but hemoglobin, and not just hemoglobin in general, but against a certain type of hemoglobin. The reaction was strongest against pigeon and rabbit hemoglobin. There was also a weak reaction against turkey hemoglobin, but there was no reaction against snake hemoglobin. The specificity of these reactions were further confirmed by the lack of reactivity with plant and
sandstone extracts."

This is from where?

No matter, the problem is you cannot read and are ignorant. Not so much a surprise. Intact hemoglobin is not required to induce an immunological response in the rats. A paper's extract from Schweitzer states:

"Six independent lines of evidence point to the existence of heme-containing compounds and/or hemoglobin breakdown products in extracts of trabecular tissues of the large theropod dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex."

Put your reading cap on and try very, very hard. Does that say hemoglobin?

Consider the conclusions that Schweitzer and her team made concerning these findings:

"The production of antibodies specific for hemoglobin in two rats injected with the trabecular extract is striking evidence for the presence of hemoglobin-derived peptides in the bone extract. . . That the antisera did not react with snake hemoglobin shows that the reactivity is specific and not artifact. . . When considered as a whole, the results support the hypothesis that heme prosthetic groups and hemoglobin fragments were preserved in the tissues of the Late Cretaceous dinosaur skeleton."

What looked, appeared, seemed etc. to be like red blood cells were in fact red blood cells. Otherwise it wouldn't have contained hemoglobin or myoglobin proteins. And they showed it did contain hemoglobin or myoglobin proteins through the immunological test. This immune response was not only against heme, but hemoglobin, and not just hemoglobin in
general, but against a certain type of hemoglobin.

Emphasis mine. Further, here is an excerpt from the conclusion of her paper:

"Immunogenicity is not dependent on fully intact protein (42), and even very small peptides are immunogenic when complexed with larger organic molecules, so this is a highly sensitive method that maximizes the possibility of detecting small, specific, endogenous proteins in fossil bones, even after extensive degradation has occurred."

They did not find hemoglobin.

Carl Woese: "Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves. " His paper http://www.pnas.org/content/95/12/6854.full

Dr. Doolittle: "...at its base the universal TOL [The Tree of Life] rests on an unproven assumption about pattern that, given what we know about process, is unlikely to be broadly true." His paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17261804
Here he reveals the tree of life needs to be uprooted http://shiva.msu.montana.edu/courses/mb437_537_2005_fall/docs/uprooting.pdf

A study about orphan genes (genes that come out of nowhere) http://mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/151/8/2499 The sample of orphan genes are continuing to rise as shown in the chart. This contradicts the current evolutionary model- that all life descended from a common ancestor.

A paper by Fischer: "...even if all ORFans correspond to highly divergent members of known families, a number of puzzling questions arise. For example, how have their sequences diverged to such an extent that no similar sequences are detected today? If evolution works through descent with modification, then why is it that no similar sequences are found in other organisms?" http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~dfischer/orfanprot.pdf

Eugene Koonan declares that TOL [Tree of Life] does not exist. http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/21

Paul Nelson also reveals other studies in the video which show that Darwin's Tree of Life has been contradicted by molecular analysis. Does it falsify evolution (the definition I used)? No, they will just hypothesize that life originated many different times, which is even more implausible.

Did you read any of that? None of it falsifies evolution or casts doubts on the theory as a whole. The tree of life does need revisiting but this isn't a problem for evolution. It's expected that in the process of conducting science you need to adapt your understanding and revise models. This is how science works(unlike religion, which cannot rewrite its "facts.")

I can leave you with this from the conclusion in the paper written by Doolittle:

"Some biologists find these notions confusing and discouraging. It is as if we have failed at the task that Darwin set for us: delineating the unique structure of the tree of life. But in fact, our science is working just as it should. An attractive hypothesis or model (the single tree) suggested experiments, in this case the collection of gene sequences and their analysis with the methods of molecular phylogeny. The data show the model to be too simple. Now new hypotheses, having final forms we cannot yet guess, are called for."

You are disingenuous and ignorant.

Strange, I see most people agreeing with me that your posts are nonsense.

I'm curious what form of mental gymnastics you will now perform to explain how this is not an appeal to the majority.

 

[speculawyer]

Because God is nothing more than putty.

Puddy is Christian

The number of living fossils that literally silence Darwinism is in the millions. Some of these are stored in warehouses. Only a very few are on display in various museums. This site has been prepared in order to put an end to the mentality that causes these fossils, that represent a complete response to Darwinism, to be hidden away, and that prevents them from being placed before the public.

LOL!
http://living-fossils.com/

That is some funny stuff. Didja buy the book too?

Did you know that there is no reason something needs to evolve at all? If it is surviving as is, there will be little change. Basically, this whole 'living fossil' thing is nothing but "Why we still got monkey?!?!?!".

 

[HeadlessRoland]

I'm curious what form of mental gymnastics you will now perform to explain how this is not an appeal to the majority.

Its only a fallacy if my argument is contingent on the majority viewing you as stupid, it does not. But when everyone can understand and respond to one side and universally agree that yours is senseless, it should be a wake up call.

One god is less likely than another or a new discovery has made one god less likely than before.

Hahahahaha, you are the embodiment of my point, thanks for that.

 

[KHarvey16]

Its only a fallacy if my argument is contingent on the majority viewing you as stupid, it does not. But when everyone can understand and respond to one side and universally agree that yours is senseless, it should be a wake up call.

Oh, so that's how.

Also, you are delusional. No one else has responded to me and two have quoted something you said and gave it support. None said my position was senseless and your use of "universally" is pretty pathetic.

But hey, whatever you need to do to make yourself feel better I guess.

Hahahahaha, you are the embodiment of my point, thanks for that.

Again, not making sense.

 

[jaxword]

As I mentioned earlier, I don't have enough time to properly engage in this thread.

Which is fine, everyone has real life. But then you shouldn't be posting in it. The information and refutations to the things you post are all here, including questions which you haven't answered. If you willfully ignore those, that's dishonest, immature, and basically trolling.

 

[Dead Man]

Today there are still no transitional fossils.

And that is why you cannot debate with some people.

 

[jaxword]

People here will be interested in this.

http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html

Richard B. Hoover, Ph.D. NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center:

Dr. Hoover has discovered evidence of microfossils similar to Cyanobacteria, in freshly fractured slices of the interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites. Based on Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and other measures, Dr. Hoover has concluded they are indigenous to these meteors and are similar to trichomic cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes such as filamentous sulfur bacteria. He concludes these fossilized bacteria are not Earthly contaminants but are the fossilized remains of living organisms which lived in the parent bodies of these meteors, e.g. comets, moons, and other astral bodies. The implications are that life is everywhere, and that life on Earth may have come from other planets.

Members of the Scientific community were invited to analyze the results and to write critical commentaries or to speculate about the implications. These commentaries will be published on March 7 through March 10, 2011.



----

People who argue against fossil life are seriously losing ground every day. While the rest of the planet evolves and we're working towards finding life IN SPACE, people are still trying to keep us in the dust.

 

[Raist]

And that is why you cannot debate with some people.

No crocoduck, no buy.

 

[Kinitari]

When people argue multiple points at once, it's really just... too much to reply too. JCRedeems, it's great that you want to debate, and I hope that some snark doesn't push you away, just try not to follow in Vizions footsteps, he would post a wall with like 8 different points, ignore it when people refuted them, and post another wall with 8 more points (usually the exact same points as well).

To keep this simple, I am going to ask simple questions.

1. What would be a transitional fossil to you? Let me add that, the understanding of evolution theory puts forward that all creatures are transitional - meaning they are always in the process changing. But still, if you want to see fossils that do a good job of representing the 'transformation' of a species, here is a list.

2. It seems that there are some Scientists you 'do not trust', going off your post. Is there a particular list you can post, so we know which ones to avoid quoting for information? It seems weird that you will ignore a scientist who tries to explain one of their discoveries, and instead, shoehorn in your own opinion of what transpired instead.

 

[Raist]

just try not to follow in Vizions footsteps, he would post a wall with like 8 different points, ignore it when people refuted them, and post another wall with 8 more points (usually the exact same points as well).

It's probably the same dude. But that's irrelevant, there's no point trying to debate with these guys.

 

[Zaphod]

It is common for evolutionists to conjure up a hypothesis to shoehorn the data into their paradigm. The case about Mary hypothesizing that dinosaur tissue can be well preserved for 68+ million years when there was no precedence is just one example.

You have already changed your argument from the statement that there were well preserved dinosaurs cadavers to one saying there was well preserved tissue. Why do you keep trying to shoehorn your data into some argument that evolution is not real.

Here is a quote from Mary herself on what she found in regards to the structures in a T.Rex bone that resemble red blood cells.

" I can't make any claims for those structures that appear to be like their modern counterparts until the chemistry reveals whether they are molecular remnants of the original structures, even if altered greatly, or if they are some kind of microbial pseudomorph or even some kind of as yet unknown biogeological process unrelated to structures or molecules produced by the dinosaur itself. If, for example, I were able to isolate those round red structures in the vessel and analyze them separately, and if I were to see any signals that are consistent with heme or hemoglobin, I would be much more likely to believe they are related to the dinosaur cells and proteins. For right now, I am assuming they are not."

She is being what you so desire a scientist to be, which is skeptical.

Today there are still no transitional fossils.

I like that even though I took the time to respond to your entire post you seem to have ignored my examples of the fossils that show the transition from dinosaur to feathered flying bird. I'll repeat it again for you. Each time a traditional form is found two more gaps are created. The term transitional fossil as you are using it is basically meaningless. Each fossil found is just a snapshot of that creature at the time of its death. Its ancestors were different and its progeny were different. It might vary little if the form is successful in its niche. Basically every fossil found is a transitional form between what was before it and what is after it.

There are thousands of other of different species/families. No evolutionary change at all and of course no examples of intermediates.

Once again, if a form is successful why would it need to change? Also, just because the form is the same does not mean the DNA is identical. Changes could have occurred in their immune system to fight off diseases or to adapt to a change in their environment. The observed physical form is only one part of a creature.

Why is it that new forms appear so rapidly after mass extinctions? Could it be with most of the ecological niches vacated new forms will evolve from the survivors to fill those roles?

humans supposedly diverged from some ape species only like 5-8 million years ago which requires a lot of evolutionary change. Right.

Glad to see that we agree that Humans evolved from apes in few million years. Perhaps we have some common ground. Or your are using sarcasm? Which like many of your arguments is a rather disingenuous way to discuss things.

Yes, we are 96% similar to chimps. That equals to about a 0.0000008% change per year. The rate of change is even less than that since chimps have also evolved since we diverged from a common ancestor millions of years ago.

They also found even more presereved cadavers that were even older at 80+ million years.

There are no known well preserved dinosaur cadavers at all. Only some small amount of tissue on some bones. I see your argument has devolved back to its original falsehood.

There are discoveries such as a spider web trapped in an amber deposit that was located in a rock layer supposedly 100 million years older than the time spiders were assumed to have evolved. All they have to do is just say they existed than previously thought.

Finding a spider earlier simply means just that. The spiders appeared earlier than previously thought. The findings that would really mess things up would be something like finding a cat in the Triassic era. The reason the spider is not a big deal is because it is not skipping a step. Finding a cat in the early Carboniferous period would be a problem since Synapsids had not yet produced the two different creatures that would become dinosaurs and mammals. This cat discovery has not happened yet.

There are discoveries like this all the time that contradicts the evolutionary model but it can never be falsified.

There is no such thing as an "evolutionary model" that accounts for evolution of ever single organism. This non existent model would also not be so rigid that changes based on additional evidence destroy it. Science works that way. Newtonian physics gave way to relativity for example. Newtonian physics still mostly works at describing the world at our scale but it is no longer the explanation of why our world works this way.

There was a discussion on the thread about how gene duplication and you mentioned it but it can't account for "new genetic information" according to a found contradicts that idea.

I can't quite parse this sentence out but I'm pretty sure that if a DNA sequence goes from GTAC to GTAC GTAC that is new information. Twice the information of the original.

Now notice I didn't post any papers or quotes by a creationist. They are all secular as far I know. And I didn't spam or mine quote. So I hope I don't get banned eeek

You wont get banned for disagreeing. You could be banned if your are Vizion28's alt account though.

To say that all life forms evolved from some proto cell or whatever because we see genetic change in populations today is gross extrapolation. The burden of evidence falls on the evolutionists and from what I have read there is no scientific evidence to make that backs up that extrapolation, it in fact contradicts it.

I did not ask about a cell to modern life. I simply asked that if you accept that a creature can adapt over time, why is impossible for it to have eventually changed so much that over time the creature has a new form?

Evolutionists predicted it would be useless leftovers from our evolutionary past. Now we know they have invaluable functions. Their prediction failed.

We do not use all the DNA we have. That is a fact, even if you don't want it to be true it's still true. We know that chickens have DNA for teeth for example. This is obviously not currently used by the chicken.

And it has already been pointed out on the thread that random mutations corrupt the genome. They don't build genetic information.

This is also not correct. You are falling back on the old "Mutation is bad" argument because the word has negative connotations. A mutation is not a corruption, it is merely a change from the original.

The studies by Syke, Sanford and others have shown it does. And natural selection is unable to weed them out. Our destiny is extinction within the next 100,000 years they say.

Natural selection most certainly weeds out harmful changes to the genetic code. If the creature has a change that affects its fitness to survive it will be less likely to reproduce and pass on the defect. If the change is catastrophic enough it probably won't survive past birth.

I think you need to ask yourself this; If your arguments have to be disingenuous and have to misrepresent the science of the articles you link to in order to make a point, maybe your hypothesis that we were created out of thin air a few thousand years ago is incorrect. Maybe just maybe we did in fact evolve over time from a common ancestor over billions of years. Personally I see plenty of evidence for the latter and I am still waiting for a creationist to provide any evidence that is falsifiable for the idea of creation.

 

[danwarb]

People here will be interested in this.

http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html

Richard B. Hoover, Ph.D. NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center:

Dr. Hoover has discovered evidence of microfossils similar to Cyanobacteria, in freshly fractured slices of the interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites. Based on Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and other measures, Dr. Hoover has concluded they are indigenous to these meteors and are similar to trichomic cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes such as filamentous sulfur bacteria. He concludes these fossilized bacteria are not Earthly contaminants but are the fossilized remains of living organisms which lived in the parent bodies of these meteors, e.g. comets, moons, and other astral bodies. The implications are that life is everywhere, and that life on Earth may have come from other planets.

Members of the Scientific community were invited to analyze the results and to write critical commentaries or to speculate about the implications. These commentaries will be published on March 7 through March 10, 2011.



----

People who argue against fossil life are seriously losing ground every day. While the rest of the planet evolves and we're working towards finding life IN SPACE, people are still trying to keep us in the dust.

I liked the suggestion that the red streaks on Europa could be evidence of microbial life.

Antarctica's Blood Falls: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/8...ls-shows-how-aliens-might-live-on-ice-worlds/

 

[Dever]

Finding a spider earlier simply means just that. The spiders appeared earlier than previously thought. The findings that would really mess things up would be something like finding a cat in the Triassic era. The reason the spider is not a big deal is because it is not skipping a step. Finding a cat in the early Carboniferous period would be a problem since Synapsids had not yet produced the two different creatures that would become dinosaurs and mammals. This cat discovery has not happened yet.

I find this argument completely devastating for any sort of creation model where all the species were brought about at nearly the same time. Finding all sorts of animals in all rock layers, no matter how old, should be a principle prediction made by creation upon which it should either stand or fall upon. If JCRedeems wants to know how evolution could be falsified, human or rabbit bones next to a t-rex would do it.

 

[Sanky Panky]

My one contribution on this topic is just to compare the scientific inferences made by both the ID crowd and evolutionists. Yes, they both use THE SAME scientific process of subjective inference to support their own hypothesis. Evolutionist cannot empirically test for common ancestry, so they make inferences (opinions) based on phylogeny, morphology, etc.

The ID crowd use our definition of information processing (a message and a receptor able to process that information) as it is used in man-made mechanical systems and engineering. The problem with IDers is that while from their own experience they can infer (opinion) that intelligence is required to develop a functioning system, they can only empirically test that functioning mechanical systems that process information don't arise by misguided natural processes (a.k.a evolution from common ancestor). However, it is clear that empirically testing against evolution, does not prove ID.

In simple terms, I have an example:

Imagine the word C A T,

a) each letter is a gene,
b) the word "CAT" is a word that has actual meaning (functioning organism) in our human dictionary (planet earth).

Evolutionists believe that:

With a) time, b) genetic mutations and c) natural selection, the 3-letter word CAT has yielded volumes and volumes of more complex, efficient, and awe-inspiring pieces of literature that even the brightest human minds can't even conceive. They see the word DOG and think not only is it also a 3 letter word, but they both mean small 4-legged animals, so they must be closely related. Same way CATASTROPHE is related because it has CAT in it, but it is more complex so it must be more recent.

IDers believe that:

Because there are volumes and volumes of more complex, efficient, and awe-inspiring pieces of literature that even the brightest human minds can't even conceive, they can only compare it with less efficient, intelligently designed systems. With comparing the two, they hypothesize that it comes from an intelligently guided process. This INFERENCE is from a priori knowledge of engineering/physics, systems, etc.

Both have problems:

Evolutionist cannot empirically test words like CAT becoming full fledged stories with many other words and meanings (well, they have tried). They work backwards through INFERENCE (opinion). They look at how a story like the fable of the Garden of Eden evolved. They go back in time, and find that words like APPLE, SNAKE, and MAN are found in lower taxa of the dictionary. This for them is proof that through natural mechanisms (given enough time and circumstances) the full story can evolve, including its moral teachings for us (like an organism being a part of an ecosystem). The problem that these opinions on how the story evolved are speculations, sometimes backed up by other observations, sometimes put in to question by other observations. In the end, the best subjective opinion WINS, so you have to question how much understanding do we really gain about life based on these educated guesses?

IDers can have all the comparable intelligently designed systems in the world as reference, but empirically, they can only test for the opposite. They can only test what the chances are for a functioning system to come about naturally. This is why the theory is mostly argued on the basis of evolution NOT working (genetic load, irreducible complexity, natural selection as an inadequate mechanism, etc). However, natural mechanisms not working does nothing to prove an intelligent designer. In a naturalistic world, this still leaves us with evolution as the only plausible unguided explanation.

I am all for debate, but some thinks they stand all high and mighty because normally "scientific" is associated with something empirically derived, and testable. Many common ancestry claims and "irrefutable evidence" for the evolution of a system simply subjective opinions based on a few observations that cannot be empirically tested (which is why many are shown to be wrong in light of new evidence).

 

[Pandaman]

i dont understand the dino-blood example.

if someone finds dino blood and dates it to 90million years, its 90 million years old. period.
the alternative is that radioactive decay can occur at several thousand to million orders of magnitude faster than what we think. and we know that is impossible, because if that amount of energy was being released over a much shorter time period, the earth would be a molten ball of death.

 

[Mgoblue201]

Kenneth Miller picked out data to support his preconceived belief. Though there are many documented instances of these interstitial telomeric sequences in the genomes of humans and chimps, the 2q13 interstitial telomeric sequence is the only one which is able to be associated with an evolutionary breakage point or fusion. Most are not DNA scars in the way they have been portrayed. The following paper shows there are many ITSs in the genomes of chimps, and humans, even mice and cows but the 2q13 ITS is the only can be assocated with an evolutionary fusion.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19420924?dopt=Abstract

The abstract does not indicate that the paper covers mice and cows. It sounds like you are confusing something that Richard Sternberg said. But it should be said that other papers seem to indicate the opposite. Here are some examples.

"Evolutionary breakpoints are co-localized with fragile sites and intrachromosomal telomeric sequences in primates":

Based on a comparative cytogenetic study among different primate species we have identified (or described) the chromosome bands in the karyotypes of Papionini and Cebus species implicated in evolutionary reorganizations. More than 80% of these evolutionary breakpoints are located in chromosome bands that express FSs and/or contain ITSs.

"Evolutionary conserved chromosomal segments in the human karyotype are bounded by unstable chromosome bands."

Our data also support the hypothesis that chromosomal breakages detected in pathological processes are not randomly distributed along the chromosomes, but rather concentrate in those important evolutionary chromosome bands which correspond to fragile sites and/or intrachromosomal telomeric-like sequences.

"Telomeric repeats far from the ends: mechanisms of origin and role in evolution."

This observation is consistent with the hypothesis that s-ITSs are probably not themselves prone to breakage but represent 'scars' of ancient breakage that may have occurred within fragile regions.

"Insertion of Telomeric Repeats at Intrachromosomal Break Sites During Primate Evolution"

Our conclusions indicate that human ITSs are relics of ancient breakage rather than fragile sites themselves, as previously suggested.

And those are just a few. Now, I would like to have a discussion of why they appear to be reaching different conclusions (curiously, some of them had the same author), but I don't have access to the full paper. I don't suppose that you do either.

However, there are also other reasons to think that chromosome 2 fused during the course of evolution. First, the DNA sequences of the chromosome are nearly identical to those found in two separate chromosomes in closely related chimpanzees and gorillas. Second, the chromosome also contains vestigial centromeres.

This argument is about whether evolution has explanatory power. It could be that the presence of vestigial telomeric sequences don't always correspond to former chromosomal breakage. However, the fact that the fusion of two primate chromosomes solves the problem of why we have one less and that it appears to bear the mark of breakage and fusion is a powerful argument for evolution. Keep in mind that there are three different ITSs found in humans. Most of these papers, including the one you cited, talk about short ITSs. Chromosome 2 is an example of a specific fusion ITS. It's the only known fused ITS in the human genome. Therefore, it's not cherry-picking. Miller simply used the one unique ITS that corresponded with a chromosomal fusion event.

It is common for evolutionists to conjure up a hypothesis to shoehorn the data into their paradigm. The case about Mary hypothesizing that dinosaur tissue can be well preserved for 68+ million years when there was no precedence is just one example.

I'll simply repeat what Zaphod said; tissue is a misleading word. This should not conjure to mind the fresh preservation of a carcass. These are, at best, very fine remains found on a fossilized bone. Still, you have not yet made an argument for how this impacts evolution. So what if there isn't precedence? Science is all about finding new precedence, so the only question is about whether this fits into the evolutionary paradigm. In that aspect it mostly changes the field of paleontology. There are a few reasons why we found this now: 1) analytical techniques are growing better, and 2) we have not looked in the right places because we did not expect to find this. It looks like, now that we know it's there, that this is not a one time freak occurrence. So this should not be surprising anymore.

I don't know what you're attempting to prove here. Is well-preserved dinosaur tissue supposed to overturn the incredibly well-supported fact that the universe is billions of years old? There are multiple explanations for how tissue, in whatever state, might last millions of years. There are no good scientific reasons to doubt radiometric dating as a whole.

Lastly, I'll repeat this again: I think that a creationist must also explain this data, because it hardly corresponds with their worldview. If you are a YEC, then why aren't we finding preserved tissue everywhere? If everything is the same age, then it should have an equal chance at preservation. And if DNA can last a million or so years, then why isn't preserved DNA everywhere?

Nor should this give comfort to creationists. As Schweitzer said, this bolsters the molecular link between dinosaurs and birds.

Sure it is a problem. Darwin said himself it pose a problem to his theory if their lacked transitional fossils. He admitted in his day there were no transitional fossils. Today there are still no transitional fossils. Gould, who openly admitted it throughout his career hypothesized punctuated equilibirium - a rapid burst of evolution throughout history. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put 2 + 2 together why such a hypothesis would be conjured up. This was to cover up the lack of transitional fossils. In light of that they had to say goodbye to Gradualism Theory and say hello to Punctuated Equilibrium. No wonder there aren't any transitional fossils, right? Just another example that you can't falsify evolution.

You really need to read every post. Here is what I argued earlier:

Furthermore, punctuated equilibrium is a very specific evolutionary theory. It is not simply a matter of sudden leaps. Nor does it merely intend to explain changes to evolutionary rates. It explains a specific type of speciation event. And many times that speciation can be so subtle that it takes an expert to tell the difference. So it is not an attempt to explain away the lack of fossils. The emergence of basilosaurus in the fossil record, for example, as a progenitor to modern ceteceans is powerful evidence for evolution, even if there are massive gaps in between.

I don't think that you actually know anything about Gould. He's just another avatar to prop up in your war against evolution. In fact, Gould stated that the sudden appearance of species in the fossil record "is the proper prediction of evolutionary theory as we understand it." This should not conjure to mind the sudden appearance in the rocks of an organism that is completely unexplainable. He is talking about species to species transformation. Long stasis followed by rapid change is completely within the realm of evolutionary theory if those changes show morphological characteristics that have been derived from previously existing species. And that is exactly what we see much of the time. Here is what Gould said about being used as fodder by creationists:

“Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists — whether through design or stupidity, I do not know — as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.”

And even if we accept "transitional fossils" as a viable concept, I don't know how you can say there are no "transitions" without even bothering to address the fossils that scientists consider to be "transitional". It just seems like a willful disregard of the evidence. I'm not even going to go through all of them because it seems like a waste of time. You can see some examples here and here.

This Eleutrhorodactylus

is identical to its counterpart. Supposedly 90 million years old.

This Sphaerodactylus

supposedly is 90 million years old but no change at all.

There are thousands of other of different species/families. No evolutionary change at all and of course no examples of intermediates.

Identical? Eleutrhorodactylus is a genus. That does not mean it's the same species. By definition, different species within a genus are far from identical.

Anyway, I can't find much independent proof for these. The best I can find for the frog is a small blurb in Science that says it's from the upper Eocene, which occurred approximately 35 million years ago, not 90 million years. I need more proof than this, preferably from experts. What species is it? What are the morphological similarities to currently living species?

Of course. There was no need for evolution even after 50+ millions of years for many species but humans supposedly diverged from some ape species only like 5-8 million years ago which requires a lot of evolutionary change. Right.

Just because humans are remarkably unique, at least in our own eyes, does not mean that the genetic change was epochal. We are still, at least comparing base pair to base pair, similar to other mammals. Sure, we went through a few genera in that time on the way to becoming human. But the modern coelacanth, just to take one example, exists in a different family than its many ancient ancestors. I was saying this earlier in the thread: the coelacanth, in terms of its classification, encompasses an entire order similar to primates. The ceolacanth, therefore, did not exist in a state of complete stasis. It diverged into many species just as primates did. It is still changing.

But everything changes genetically; that genetic change still has to first become fixed within a population in order for speciation to occur. Otherwise the genetic change is simply going to become lost. If there is a lot of gene flow occurring between populations, then they are likely to remain genetically stable. Morphologically, therefore, there might be only modest change. Your incredulity does not change the fact that this is well established science. The same family or even genera of organisms might subsist for a very long time if there are no extinctions.

I don't have time to pick apart everything else. However, you're wrong about spider evolution. Fossils have been found dating back to 400 million years ago. That a web would be found dating back 140 million years isn't even surprising.

Raptorex is vaguely related to the T-Rex. As far as I can tell, they are part of the same superfamily, which itself dates back 130 to 140 million years. A raptorex existing 125 million years ago falls in line with when this superfamily evolved. And there is reason to doubt even that dating:

Because the specimen was donated by a collector without detailed provenance information, Larson doubted the assigned age, which was based on a fish vertebra and a freshwater clam said to have been alongside the dinosaur fossil. Larson speculated that the fossil could have come from beds in Mongolia that yield fossils of Tarbosaurus, dating from 70 million years ago.

You really don't understand what we're looking for here. If the raptorex is indeed a viable genus, then it is a cousin to the T-rex like we are cousins to the other primates. But just as there are early and late primate species, T-rex could be considered late while raptorex could be considered early. It still falls within our general understanding of tyrannosauroid evolution, so there is nothing surprising here. The amber, too, isn't an example of "flowering plants before flowering plants existed." The spider web isn't an example of anything that you're trying to prove. What we're talking about is something like a rabbit that has existed hundreds of millions of years before mammals even evolved. The best example I can think of that you can use is the early tetrapod footprints, but those existed only a few million years before the earliest known tetrapod and still fall generally within the timeframe of tetrapod evolution. Furthermore, fossilization is extremely rare, and just because it's the earliest known doesn't mean that it's the earliest period.

EDIT: If you already know that the idea of information and mutations have been addressed in this thread, then you should also know that I had a response to it here. It should not be ignored.